You came to Puerto Rico for the golden sand and sun—gold, you will recall, was also the basis of our first colonizers’ initial attraction. For the endless piña coladas and rum-spiked mysteries. For the colonial charm and quaint, humble lifestyle. Poverty looks so alluring in the Caribbean, what with the bright colors, crystal-clear waters and the backdrop of lush greens—besides, it’s only for a week. Your friends say it’s the hottest Spring Break spot; the newspapers say it’s a debt-ridden disaster; your parents say it’s dangerous and that the water is undrinkable; and the brochures say it’s a (tax) haven, an absolute paradise. So here you are, in your bathing suit and sarong, mojito in hand, ready to focus on your one task for the week: getting a tan.

But it turns out that the sun isn’t nailed onto the sky, and it doesn’t run on one-million 100-watt light bulbs that never fail. The tides rise and the swells are ferocious. Coconuts, palm trees and branches are potential projectiles. And a hurricane is heading straight for your worry-free fantasy.

So you try to catch a flight out of this paradise-turned-inferno, because a hurricane was not on your must-see itinerary. Instead, JetBlue takes you to a hurricane shelter in San Juan, a hot and humid coliseum, where your beach chair is replaced by a cot; your piña colada by a Walgreens water bottle; your dream, by our reality.

Puerto Rico is no stranger to crisis. Before Irma’s rampage through the archipelago, Puerto Rico was already in the midst of one of the most devastating financial and socio-political crises in its recent history, with an unaudited $74 billion debt under its belt, $49 billion in pension obligations, and several decades’ worth of illegal bond issuances and trading related to its status as an overly-advertised tax haven. Neoliberal policies such as draconian budget cuts and extreme austerity measures had already rendered life in Puerto Rico quite precarious. And the whole thing was being overseen and managed simultaneously by Governor Rosselló, an unelected and antidemocratic Fiscal Control Board, and judge Laura Taylor Swain, all of whom were going back and forth on the country’s fiscal management and debt restructuring processes.

But even as Hurricane Irma headed straight towards it, for many outside of the country, Puerto Rico is a mere blip on CNN’s news ticker, an enchanting US-owned island on a tourist brochure, that exotic place where the music video for “Despacito” was filmed (and made all the better by Justin Bieber), a pebble sinking between an ocean and a sea that have seen too much.

But Irma’s passing and aftermath have once again brought to light Puerto Rico’s primordial conundrum: colonialism.

Puerto Rico has been a US colony (the US prefers the euphemistic designations of “commonwealth”, “unincorporated territory” and “free associated state”) for 199 years, a relationship that has led to the country’s being trapped in a steep downward spiral. The current fiscal and socio-political crisis is only one of the side effects of this relationship.

Hurricane Irma’s passing underscored the damage done by the neoliberal austerity measures imposed by the Fiscal Control Board and the crimes committed by corporations taking advantage of Puerto Rico’s colonial status. For starters, as a result of the massive closure of public schools, only 329 schools across the island were available as hurricane shelters compared with the 372 available during Hurricane Bertha’s passing in 2014.

Puerto Rico’s infrastructure also finds itself in an advanced state of deterioration, including roads, bridges, the University of Puerto Rico and public service buildings all of whom were critically endangered during Irma’s passing. A good part of the country’s “essential infrastructure” is on the coast, making it vulnerable to flooding, high tides and storm surges, especially during hurricanes of Irma’s or Maria’s intensity.

It is notable that much of that infrastructure was built to benefit the tourist industry and mercantile trade with the US, and the US alone. Money invested in infrastructure tends to go towards revitalizing these “essentials”, not to repairing the potholed roads in our communities, remediating asbestos-filled buildings or replacing crumbling light poles at the mercy of hurricane winds. All of this is further proof of our colonial market dependency and the essentially colonial nature of the tourist industry, which caters particularly to PR’s relationship with the US.

The budget cuts, in an already weak economy, will probably make the storm’s social impact worse.

Minet added that a pre-Irma forecast by the Center for a New Economy’s policy director, Sergio M. Marxuach, predicts that the recently approved the Fiscal Plan would result in another lost decade, continued population loss due to migration and lower birth rates, lower employment, less access to public education, pension cuts, worsening health outcomes, higher mortality and lower life expectancy, and, ultimately, higher rates of poverty and inequality. “Now add in the cataclysm of a monster hurricane that the plan never accounted for,” said Minet.

The Fiscal Control Board is likely to use Irma as an excuse to aggressively push the many policies it has in line, such as the privatization of PR’s Electric Power Authority (AEE). Nor would it be surprising if Gov. Rosselló and the Fiscal Control Board used the occasion to dismantle and privatize the University of Puerto Rico, the only public higher education institution in the country, as well as a number of other public institutions that are defenseless against the colonial rule of the Fiscal Control Board and its blatant neoliberal attacks.

Now, barely two weeks after Irma’s passing, we’ve just been hit by another category 5 hurricane, María. This just as some household have just got back their electricity supply, and while others are still living in the dark; while the ground is still strewn with fallen trees and light posts waiting to take on second lives as projectiles; while many, both locals and refugees from neighboring Caribbean islands, are still recovering from the loss of their homes, their entire reality; and while crisis and colonialism continue to hold hands, as they do every day.

And so, you’re sitting in your cot with your straw hat on, hundreds of locals scrambling around you with what’s left of their lives stuffed into a bag or a suitcase, wondering why JetBlue dropped you off here and high-tailed it; why the shelter is so understaffed; why the power went even though it hasn’t yet started raining and not a gusts of wind has blown; why CNN wasn’t covering Irma’s passing over Puerto Rico. “I’m here, send over an Embassy representative for me!” you yell in your mind as you stare at the screen of your almost-dead smartphone. Why, you wonder, has life had been so unfair to you, ruining your longed-for vacation in the Island of enchantment.

Then your thoughts are interrupted as you spot a window and you walk gloomily towards it and look through pigeon-christened glass, and watch as the storm clouds gather and gusts of wind batter a US flag—oh, and a Puerto Rican one too.

Estonian President Kersti Kaljulaid giving a speech in June 2017. Photo by Estonian Foreign Ministry, CC-BY.

In her recent independence day speech, Estonian President Kersti Kaljulaid spoke on technological change, the globalization of labor, and the dangers of close-minded nationalism. This last point has dominated global reactions to her remarks.

In her national address, which marked the 26th anniversary of Estonian independence from the Soviet Union, President Kaljulaid talked about the perceived contradictions between national and socially liberal values. Her remarks were concrete and straight forward, emphasizing the possibility of preserving Estonian culture “without inhibiting democracy.”

“I am proud that I am an Estonian and I do not see any contradiction in also being part of an international value-based community,” she said.

Among other things, independence also means the opportunity to disagree. One idea, one opinion, one right – this is what we wanted to be free of. At that time [when Estonia gained independence from the Soviet Union], we explicitly recognised that this way of thinking meant totalitarianism.

Today, 26 years later, we have for some reason started to think that different opinions are no longer necessary. We seem unable find any reasonable compromises anymore – ones that many people would be happy with.

Kaljulaid outlined current, nationalist attitudes in Estonia that are also being felt around the world. Instead of supporting socially inclusive choices, she observed that the emphasis these days seems to be on everybody’s right to make their own choices.

She drew on Estonia’s history and the Baltic states’ fight for freedom, saying how the struggle from Soviet occupation allowed for democratic states that easily adopted governments that “follow the rule of law, value personal liberties, free media, and keep the power of state within a predictable framework.”

Now, Kaljulaid warned, Estonians are threatened by a “self-occupation” that can be brought on by the restriction of freedoms in the name of an idea.

“One cannot aspire to lead the society and then make compromises related the Estonia's long-term future in the name of one's own short-term political interests. Victory is accompanied by the obligation to make sure that the losers do not feel they have been sacrificed for the interests of others,” she said.

An occupation is usually initiated in the name of an idea, mobilising behind a concept without listening to other ideas or concepts. This is followed by shutting off the annoying buzz of dissenting opinions, because if you don't listen, the ideas of others will just turn into noise. That's all it takes. And democracy is consigned to the past.

We see this self-occupation occurring in countries where we thought that our similar experience behind the Iron Curtain would help them avoid such developments. We had been convinced that democracy in those countries, as in ours, could only be destroyed by a foreign power.

And therefore we are in danger of not taking offence at the support for such developments if those promoting them speak the same language we do. Self-occupation moves more stealthily than occupation by a foreigner. The restriction of freedom, in the name of any sacred idea, be it pure Estonianism or a better choice of food – can mark the start of self-occupation.

The speech resonated within the country and the neighboring region. Estonian historian, politician and journalist Toomas Alatalu remarked:

It is a great pleasure that our neighbors are such a leader … a great talk!

In contrast, Russian-language media latched onto the introduction of the term “self-occupation”. Outlets such as Lenta.ru linked it to the ongoing initiative by Baltic countries to ask for compensation for damage incurred during the period between 1940-1990 when they were forcibly made part of the Soviet Union, and to Baltic efforts to integrate the term “Soviet occupation” into official European language historicizing totalitarianism and honoring its victims. As the Russian government considers Russia an heir to both the Russian Empire and the USSR, this is likely seen as a direct affront to its reputation.

Kaljulaid also spoke to concrete challenges that Estonia faces, including current and future technologies that are set to globalize workforces and make geography and place obsolete.

Since Estonia’s independence in 1991, the country has been an active participant in the global community especially via digital technologies. Estonia has one of the world’s fastest broadband services and was the first country to declare internet access a basic human right. Kaljulaid herself often speaks of “cyber hygiene” and digital societies – as opposed to digital technologies – that are inclusive of everyone.

Estonia began offering e-government services in 1997, and began providing nationwide free wi-fi in 2002. Online voting began in 2005. In 2012, fiber optic infrastructure was laid out and today 99% of state administrative services can be accessed online. Estonia is set to create the world’s first data embassy in Luxembourg – a center that stores the country’s data and is capable of re-booting the country in case of a cyber attack.

Having already established such high digital literacy, connectivity, low usage prices and e-services, Estonia is turning to some of the more challenging questions raised by the digital transformation such as citizens rights, security, and the protection of private information.

Estonia has now assumed the presidency of the Council of the European Union, helping to nurture the development of a digital society in the EU as Estonia has. These issues indeed may become central to how Europe and the rest of the world navigate widespread nationalist attitudes on a global stage.

Hurricane, Bahamas. Winslow Homer (1898). Image donated to Wikimedia Commons as part of a project by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

By Nicolette Bethel

This article appeared originally on Blogworld and is republished here with the author's permission.

Anyone who has grown up with me knows that I’m not a person to take hurricanes lightly. When I was 17, I wrote an extended essay on the subject. The essay required me to delve into the science behind hurricanes, and also sent me to the archives in search of the impact of hurricanes on The Bahamas.

I knew about the 1929 hurricane, of course; my grandmothers’ generation had survived it, and they would tell us stories of the bad old days when hurricanes came along every year and pass directly over Nassau. And the history books I had at my disposal (Michael Craton’s 1968 edition of A History of The Bahamas and Paul Albury’s 1975 The Story of The Bahamas) mentioned an earlier hurricane, one from 1866, which also devastated Nassau. I read everything I could get my hands on about both hurricanes. And then, for the next decade or so, I was a hurricane prophet, warning my family (really, anyone who would listen) to get ready every year. Because, although Nassau had not sustained a major hit for a good 20 years or so, I just knew it was going to be a matter of time.

Well, as we can see, it was. New Providence was struck directly in 2001 by Hurricane Michelle, whose eye passed over Nassau, and then almost struck directly by Hurricane Matthew in 2016, whose eye shifted just to the west of our island in the last hours before it struck. But nothing yet has impacted the capital the way the hurricanes of the 1920s and the 1800s did.

There are two things I want to say about this. The first has to do with the past and what it can teach us. The other has to do with the future and how we can use what we have learned.

What the past can teach us

The Bahamas, like the USA, historically sits outside the most common path of hurricanes. The majority of our archipelago lies above the Tropic of Cancer, in the sub-tropical zone, and at least until the end of the twentieth century, most hurricanes tended to form and stay within the tropics, crossing the Atlantic to the Caribbean Sea and then sweeping up the Lesser Antilles. This was disastrous for the Caribbean but fortuitous for The Bahamas, as the Caribbean islands tend to be mountainous, and mountains help to break up hurricanes’ organization. The most common result was that by the time that hurricanes reached The Bahamas, even major ones like Inez and David and Georges, they had dissipated and were reduced to Category 1 or 2 hurricanes, or even to tropical storms.

Every thirty years or so, however, some regular shift in global weather patterns appeared to encourage the formation of hurricanes further north and increase the likelihood that they would affect The Bahamas and US eastern seaboard. These hurricanes would sweep across the Atlantic and not be disrupted by land or mountains until they were well inland in the USA. The 1866 hurricane in The Bahamas was one of these, one of the earliest with a systematic plotting of its location and its intensity (believed to be a powerful Category 4 hurricane). Our primary source of information regarding its intensity comes from the barometric pressure recorded during the passage of the storm (for more details, read Wayne Neely’s book). This was followed by another deadly hurricane in 1899; then a series of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes between 1926 and 1932; then Betsy in 1965; and then Andrew in 1992.

For anyone who wants to learn anything about hurricanes in The Bahamas, look to Wayne Neely. He’s the expert. If you want to know who to listen to on social media, check what he has to say. It’s his hobby; but it’s also his training, and his job.

This meant that it was quite possible, at least during the twentieth century, for a Bahamian adult to live and die without experiencing more than one or two devastating hurricanes. My father was such a person. He was born in 1938, and between then and his death in 1987, he experienced only one major storm: Betsy in 1965. His life during the 1970s was spent putting up hurricane shutters when we were under hurricane warnings, only to find out that the hurricane had either blown out to sea, or was nothing more than some wind and rain. And he complained. Our hurricane shutters were heavy wooden things that were fitted into our window frames and held in place with bars of two-by-four. They were hard to put up and hard to take down, and when he put them up only to be disappointed by some storm or other, he refused to take them down until the end of the season. He would unshutter the common areas of our house, but we would spend our nights in the darkness of the closed-up bedrooms.

I imagine that it’s hard for younger Bahamians to conceive of the possibility of going through one’s life without ever experiencing more than one deadly storm. The past twenty-five years have brought an extended period of hurricanes affecting our archipelago, beginning with Andrew, which was Category 5 when it struck Eleuthera from the east, and continuing through Floyd and Michelle and Frances and Jeanne and Wilma and Irene and Ike and Sandy and Joaquin and Matthew and Irma and potentially Jose. The historical weather patterns affecting hurricanes have changed; the thirty-year cycle that predominated from the 1780s through the 1990s has been replaced with a cycle that we have not yet found a pattern for.

What is most striking about all of this, to my mind, is not the inevitable argument about climate change. What strikes me about this historical survey of hurricanes in The Bahamas is the one glaring fact that we tend to obscure while we are praying to be spared or engaging in rescue and clean-up: that the modern Bahamas fares better in hurricanes than almost any other territory on the planet.

Part of the reason for this comes from our very geography. We have no rivers to overflow and break their levees, and we have no mountains to engender landslides. These are the two deadliest side effects of hurricanes, and they don’t happen to us. But there are other common ways that people die in hurricanes, and delving into our historical archives can tell us what they were. People are drowned in storm surges (as happened in Andros in 1866 and 1929) and people are killed by falling debris when houses are torn apart, when roofs fly off. And since the 1930s the number of houses that are torn apart in The Bahamas has been a whole lot fewer.

That’s because we have learned how to build for storms. I grew up in a house that was built in the 1930s, when we were rebuilding the city after the 1929 hurricane, and the contractor who built that house intended that it would withstand any storm. It is constructed of poured concrete reinforced with steel, and the roof is anchored securely to the walls. It has breezeways above every door to allow for cross ventilation, and it has withstood hurricanes without structural damage since its erection.

I live in another house, this one built in the 1950s, again from reinforced poured concrete, this one raised some three to four feet off the ground (it is built on uneven ground). My parents were born in wooden houses, one of which is still standing, the other which would still be standing if a bulldozer had not ripped it apart. The one thing we learned after the destruction of our grandmother’s home was that it was built by shipwrights, and that there was not a nail in it; it was held together by wooden pegs which grew more secure over time as they swelled into place. The houses on Harbour Island, which was hammered by Andrew when it was a Category 5 hurricane, still stand, while much of Miami, which was hit after Andrew had weakened somewhat, was destroyed.

I live in another house, this one built in the 1950s, again from reinforced poured concrete, this one raised some three to four feet off the ground (it is built on uneven ground). My parents were born in wooden houses, one of which is still standing, the other which would still be standing if a bulldozer had not ripped it apart. The one thing we learned after the destruction of our grandmother’s home was that it was built by shipwrights, and that there was not a nail in it; it was held together by wooden pegs which grew more secure over time as they swelled into place. The houses on Harbour Island, which was hammered by Andrew when it was a Category 5 hurricane, still stand, while much of Miami, which was hit after Andrew had weakened somewhat, was destroyed.

This is what we learn. Bahamians know how to build for storms. It is part of our adaptation to these islands, where evacuation is a twenty-first century luxury for the most sparsely populated islands, but is usually impossible for most of us. We have developed techniques to build homes that withstand hurricanes, and we have also written several of those techniques into our building codes. True, there is more that we could do today, but do not, possibly because of cost. Our grandfathers knew that we should not only build strong and smart, but that we should also build high: most of our traditional houses are raised on blocks and are three or four feet off the ground, and are far less prone to flooding than what we build today.

And that leads me to the second part of this meditation.

What the future can bring

I’ve watched/studied hurricanes for most of my life now. And while I respect them—deeply—I do not believe that Bahamians should fear hurricanes the way we appear to do. On the contrary. I believe that we should look hard at ourselves and work out why it is that we handle major storms so well. Part of it is, yes, our geographical flatness, our lack of mountains and rivers, our ability to hunker down through the storm and then not worry overmuch about the physical aftermath. But part of it is what we have developed ourselves.

I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that Bahamians are the world’s experts on building to survive hurricanes. This is a critical skill that we can share with the world—especially given the fact that major hurricanes appear to be forming more and more often, and growing larger and stronger, and not following the patterns of the past.

For that reason, I believe that we should be in the global hurricane industry.

I believe:

that we should study and standardize our building techniques—all of them, from the working in wood to our facility with concrete;

that we should make a science out of them and embed them into engineering and architectural programmes which we can market to the world;

that we should certify our contractors who already know how to build for hurricanes, train more in those skills, and then export them throughout the entire hurricane region of the Americas to share those skills with others;

that we should develop specific materials that we can manufacture here (cement? concrete blocks?) and thus generate revenue that returns home;

that we should continue to research how to expand our skills in withstanding hurricane to become the acknowledged leader in the world;

that we should expand those skills to incorporate more and greater self-sufficiency—using renewable energy, sustainable architectural designs, and so on;

that we should take the opportunity to rebuild devastated communities better than they were before—just as we rebuilt Nassau after the 1920s. We should invest in the rebuilding of our southern islands as sustainable, self-sufficient communities which can not only withstand future hurricanes but which can serve as models for the world.

We are faced with real opportunities. I pray that we have the sense and the courage to take advantage of them.

Nicolette Bethel is a Bahamian teacher, writer and anthropologist. She was the Director of Culture in The Bahamas, and is now a full-time lecturer in Social sciences at the College of the Bahamas. She blogs at Blogworld and tweets at @nicobet.

Iran's Ahwaz region is experiencing unusually high unemployment and poverty rates amongst its indigenous Arab population. The past few months have seen a violent upswing in Arab Ahwazi suicides. Photo of Arab workers in Iran provided by Patriotic Arab Democratic Movement in Ahwaz. Used with permission.

The self-immolation of a man named Jassim Moramazi on 27 August has thrust the desperate situation of poverty and unemployment for Iran's Ahwazi Arab community into the spotlight.

Moramazi was married with a child, living in the Al-Thawra neighborhood of Ahwaz in southwestern Iran. He had suffered from anxiety, depression and shame due to the helplessness he felt about him and his family's situation, according to Ahwazi rights groups working inside Ahwaz who wished to remain anonymous.

A graphic video shared on YouTube reportedly captured the moments after set himself on fire. Several people managed to quickly extinguish the flames, and Moramazi was admitted to Taleghani hospital in Ahwaz city. Local sources stated that his burns were too severe for doctors to treat. He died shortly afterward.

His wasn't the only case of suicide among the Ahwazi Arab minority in August, and local activists are warning of a spike in the number of men taking their own lives. The Ahwazi Centre for Human Rights reported that several others — Hamid Maniat, Ali Hazbawi, Sayed Falah Moussawi, and Shahab Bani Tamim — hung themselves within the month.

Their stories shared one thing in common: They were all family men who felt helpless in their ability to provide for their families because of persecution by the Iranian government or their inability to secure employment to provide for their families.

Ahwazi Arabs suffer poverty, unemployment and discrimination

The region where the Ahwazi Arab community is most present in Iran has been troubled by a deep economic crisis that has hindered its indigenous Arab population from securing its most basic needs.

The unemployment rate among the Ahwazi Arab youth has now risen to 81%. Nour Mohammed Pur, Iran's general director of cooperatives, work, and social welfare, stated that 5% of Ahwazis looking for jobs have pre-high school education, 55% of those seeking work only completed secondary school, and 45% of those Ahwazi job seekers hold university degrees.

A ‘systematic policy…that intends to kill the spirit of national resistance’

Karim Dohimi, an Iranian Ahwazi rights activist based in London, told Global Voices that the situation of “poverty, unemployment and racial ethnic discrimination” has led to a “massive increase” in the number of young Ahwazi men turning to suicide.

Dohimi said unemployment in particular has worsened recently, thanks to a combination of large numbers of ethnic Persians arriving in Ahwaz, and anti-Arab discrimination in hiring practices:

The preference of officials and institutions’ authorities in recruiting non-Arab workforces deprive the local Ahwazi Arabs of access to employment opportunities in all sectors. This is a part of the systematic policy of the occupying regime that intends to kill the spirit of national resistance of young Arabs, forcing them to search for subsistence outside their homeland of Ahwaz. There are people who have had to change their first and last name so as to hide their Ahwazi Arab identity to get hired as even Arabic names cannot be tolerated in the workplace let alone speaking Arabic or wearing Arabic clothes.

Given the conditions that Ahwazi Arabs are forced to bear, human rights defenders are sounding the alarm before things become explosive. It remains to be seen if the world sits up and takes notice.

The number one cause for suicide is untreated depression. Depression is treatable and suicide is preventable. You can get help from confidential support lines for the suicidal and those in emotional crisis. Visit Befrienders.org to find a suicide prevention helpline in your country.

]]>https://globalvoices.org/2017/09/04/local-groups-warn-suicide-is-on-the-rise-among-irans-impoverished-arab-ahwazi-community/feed/055 Years After Cutting Ties With Great Britain, Is Trinidad and Tobago Independent or “In Dependence”?https://globalvoices.org/2017/09/02/55-years-after-cutting-ties-with-great-britain-is-trinidad-and-tobago-independent-or-in-dependence/
https://globalvoices.org/2017/09/02/55-years-after-cutting-ties-with-great-britain-is-trinidad-and-tobago-independent-or-in-dependence/#respondSat, 02 Sep 2017 20:10:10 +0000https://globalvoices.org/?p=627882

Image of a postage stamp displaying the Trinidad Hilton Hotel and a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II, as well as the year (1962) of Trinidad and Tobago's independence from Great Britain. Photo by Mark Morgan, CC BY 2.0.

On August 31, 2017, Trinidad and Tobago celebrated its 55th anniversary of independence from Great Britain. Social media channels were full of the usual celebratory messages, but also commentary on the meaning of the event.

Dependence or independence?

The day had hardly begun when Facebook users began sharing “a short essay on the state of our Independence”:

Outside of a few sporting and artistic achievements, some internationally recognized local cuisines, some good rum of course, a handful of beauty pageant titles, and a couple of regionally powerful privately owned conglomerates, the slap in the face reality is that after 55 years of independence, this nation has little else it can boast of achieving on an international scale that was not imported, built by or managed by foreigners [who] returned to reclaim everything our independence was meant to give us. […]

They now again own, manage and control every major aspect of our lives, our finance, economy and future, so I really don’t know what 55 years of independence achieved.

Myths of In Dependence: Eric Williams [Trinidad and Tobago's first prime minister] is not the father of the nation […] the national coat of arms glorifies Christopher Columbus, genocide and colonialism. Can we really celebrate and feel happy about all of this? In the words of Ramon Grosfoguel: ‘One of the most powerful myths of the twentieth century was the notion that the elimination of colonial administrations amounted to decolonisation of the world. The heterogeneous and multiple global structures put in place over a period of 450 years did not evaporate with the juridical-political decolonisation of the periphery over the past 50 years.’ Of course, we can still celebrate those who worked hard towards better, and contributed their blood, sweat and tears for this nation. Unfortunately much of them remains faceless, nameless, unknown or forgotten.

While many netizens acknowledged that the country has its share of challenges, others took heart from the many aspects of the country worthy of celebration. Kathryn Stollmeyer-Wight shared the musings of one of her friends, Stephanie Garcia-Plummer:

Yuh go to NAPA [National Academy of the Performing Arts] to hear the young people […] play pan and yuh feel like yuh went to heaven without even bothering to die. […] Yuh go to the bank and see faces of every kind and colour. Yuh know a single mother who took in ironing for a living and her son is now a ‘big pappy lawyer’. You and your friends volunteer in various organizations and yuh don't sleep well at first because yuh can't help all the children and yuh want to take some home with you. Yes you are very aware that there many problems. High crime situation, inept politicians, ineffective policing, terrible roads inefficient health care ad nauseum ad infinitum. We know we are a third world country. We do need to hold our politicians accountable. […] Become more responsible citizens in every walk of life. Hopefully all is not lost. […]

Let us endeavor to do better, use our resources wisely, make good use of the many dozens of NGOs operating on this little island. What have you done lately to help? If you are not part of the solution you may be part of the problem.

You, the Independence Generation and the children and grandchildren you sired—including me—are you happy with how things turned out?

I’ll rephrase: Yuh own up yet to the shit yuh do? Have you acknowledged yet that the more you’ve tried to bend up this country like a kurma trying to fit it into Western colonial notions of modernity, the deeper we’ve sunk into the faecal pool the British (un)consciously left behind? […]

The root of many of our problems is a near religious refusal to believe we can do better, deserve better and can accomplish things bigger, older countries may want to emulate. Forget foreign recognition and validation, we’ve got that over and over; it made no difference.

Learned self-contempt is exactly that, learned! It is acquired, installed through a system of schooling and churching informed by deeply racist, pseudo-scientific ideas and clever divide-and-rule measures an elite minority needed to keep in place.

We have almost all the models we need right here; we have most of the solutions that will move us up to a different level. It’s all there in the heads of our grandparents who could barely read or write; it’s there in the civilisations that our ancestors came from which we have been taught to scorn.

In that vein, many Facebook users were appalled at the choice of music that accompanied the national television coverage of the Independence Day fireworks display. Peter Samuel mused:

55 YEARS of INDEPENDENCE and they could not find anything local to play… SMDH…. Big FAT steupsss.

A “steups” is a noise that Trinbagonians make by sucking air through their teeth, usually to express annoyance or disapproval.

Divisive politics

Curiously, an event that would typically unite both sides of the political divide caused further alienation when a news report alleged that for the second year running, Leader of the Opposition Kamla Persad-Bissessar and other members of the opposition bench failed to attend the traditional Independence Day parade.

Other perspectives

The 55th anniversary was viewed through many different lenses. In typical style, many injected humour into the mix, thanks to a meme showing a classic shot of Dr. Eric Williams, one of the engineers of Trinidad and Tobago's independence and the country's first prime minister, with members of The Beatles—except that this version surreptitiously snuck in the figure of Cedric Burke, an “alleged criminal” whose presence at a government minister's recent swearing-in caused a social media outcry, resulting in the ministerial appointment being revoked.

Meme, extensively shared on social media. Caption reads: Dr. Eric Williams liming with John Lennon and Ringo Starr of The Beatles. [1966 film photography]”

“Trinidad-Tobago gained its independence from the United Kingdom in 1962, and selected the Scarlet Ibis as the symbol for Trinidad and the Rufous-vented Chachalaca for Tobago. Both species are featured on the T-T Coat of Arms.” Photo of a Scarlet Ibis by Len Blumin, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Writing at Wired868, Salaah Inniss focused the spotlight on the plight of Trinidad and Tobago's national bird, the Scarlet Ibis, which despite being a protected species, is being poached:

As we approach the 55th anniversary of the attainment of Independence, I think it is appropriate to ask whether national pride is only fit to be, like the national flag, unveiled and unfurled when we are strutting proudly on the international stage. Shouldn’t national pride be something we show off on a daily basis, arguably in everything we say or do?

A retired teacher, Patricia Worrell, lamented the lack of local knowledge by the younger generation:

Just had the ‘pleasure’ of listening to interviews with some young Trini people who were clearly clueless about basic facts about Trinidad and Tobago.
And I was getting more and more angry with them, and disgusted at their basic ignorance about their own country, until I remembered:
These young men and women have all passed through the education system in T&T, which obviously allows our citizens to experience both primary and secondary education, and to emerge with all the bloom of their ignorance about their country upon them.

But as always in these twin islands, hope got the last word. Criminologist Renee Cummings, in a public Facebook post, said:

I remain hopeful that one day soon our collective behaviour as a nation will catch up to the holidays we celebrate. We began the month with Emancipation Day and we end it with Independence Day. How powerful is that! Happy 55 beautiful T&T!

The historic decision could have significant implications for India's biometric identity scheme or Aadhaar (Hindi for “foundation”), the world's largest biometric identification programme.

Aadhaar was launched in 2009 in a stated effort to eliminate ghost, duplicate and fraudulent IDs that its proponents said were disrupting the delivery of financial and other social services and causing “leakages” in government revenue. Aadhaar is implemented by the Unique Identity Authority of India (UIDAI).

Last week's judgment must be seen within the context of a series of citizen petitions to the court attempting to challenge the implementation and linkage of the biometric ID to various government welfare schemes and services.

September 2013: First Interim Order Restricting Aadhaar

On September 23, 2013, the Supreme Court of India passed an interim order in response to a batch of petitions that argued that Aadhaar violates fundamental rights of equality and privacy.

The petitions specifically challenged the linkage of Aadhaar with various welfare schemes. In their response, the court held that “no person should suffer for not getting the Aadhaar card inspite [sic] of the fact that some authority had issued a circular making it mandatory.” Since then, the court has stated several times that Aadhaar cannot be mandatory until all the cases are heard in court and disposed of.

Theoretically, this made Aadhaar optional. However, various government bodies continued to link Aadhaar to more benefits and services.

March 2015: Privacy is not a “guaranteed right”

In 2015, citizens petitioned the court challenging the constitutionality of Aadhaar. Then-Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi, representing the central government, argued before a three-judge bench of the supreme court that privacy is not a “guaranteed right,” and that there were “inconsistencies” in the previous apex court orders, despite nearly thirty years of jurisprudence on privacy in India to the contrary.

The government went on to argue that citizens will have to waive certain fundamental rights in order to have access to government benefits. To settle the matter, the court decided that the challenge would have to be resolved by a nine-judge constitution bench that would consider the overarching question of whether Indian citizens have a fundamental right to privacy or not.

But it took many months for the court to assemble this bench to hear the case.

In the meantime, more than 108 services– ranging from bank account access, to key healthcare procedures, to school enrollment — that citizens cannot access without an Aadhaar ID. Yet the UIDAI still maintains that the scheme is voluntary.

March 2016: The Aadhaar Act (and the leaks that followed)

While petitioners continued to wait for the court to form this bench, in March 2016 the government passed the Aadhaar Act.

Government proponents of the scheme, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, made several claims about the benefits of Aadhaar as a tool for combating identity fraud in welfare schemes. But civil rights activists and researchers have shown these claims to be dubious.

The magnitude of the Aadhaar scheme and its increasingly broad application to the many processes of everyday life left many advocates concerned that even if the court finally heard the case and upheld petitioners’ arguments, Aadhaar would have bcome so pervasive that it would become impossible for anyone to reverse the process.

July 2017: ‘Indians have a fundamental right to privacy’

Nearly two years after petitioners challenged the constitutionality of Aadhaar, the supreme court finally convened a nine-judge constitution bench to determine whether Indian citizens will have a right to privacy was formed in July 2017.

During the course of the hearing, the tone of the government shifted to endorsing a ‘Data Protection Act’ instead of a full-fledged fundamental right to privacy. This was yet another attempt on the part of the government to dilute the right.

On top of that, it suggested some names for a committee that would formulate the law, the composition of which raised some eyebrows.

The law minister was quick to state that the judgment does not affect the biometric scheme. However, a day after the judgment, government officials close to the development feel that they will need to “ring-fence” Aadhaar and demonstrate to the supreme court that the scheme does protect privacy of Indian citizens.

After months of mulling, President Donald Trump formally announced his strategy for Afghanistan in an hour long speech last week. For citizens of a country that has seen militant violence reach new highs on the back of the gradual withdrawal of US troops there are a number of important takeaways.

Firstly, unlike Obama administration’s deadline-based approach, the new military strategy is ‘conditions-based’, allowing U.S. military commanders in Afghanistan more freedom to make decisions based on conditions on the ground. In that sense many have interpreted the strategy Trump unveiled on August 21 as a hand-washing exercise since the beleaguered President's generals will shoulder the blame if anything goes wrong.

It is also coupled, as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson mentioned in a press briefing on August 22, with ‘conditions-based’ diplomacy to put pressure both on the Afghan government to step up its fight against corruption and bad governance, and on Pakistan to stop sheltering terrorist groups.

The rules of engagement according to the strategy are not different from that of Obama’s strategy for U.S. troops in Afghanistan post-2014, namely training, advising and assisting the Afghan forces, thereby minimising the risk of US casualties that could prove politically toxic back home.

Perhaps most notably, U.S. engagement will be driven by “principled realism” focused on fighting “terrorism” rather than “nation building” and democratization, Trump said.

This is broadly in line with a White House that prioritises economic virtues over political ones. In their first phone call after Trump took office, for instance, President Ashraf Ghani adjusted to the change in tone by attempting tried to pique the real estate mogul's interest in Afghanistan by talking up its vast mineral wealth.

Trump’s Strategy: Who Said What?

Ghani said in a press conference on August 23, that the strategy secures the interests of “both Afghanistan and the U.S”. Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Abdullah Abdullah praised the strategy the day before as a renewal of the U.S. commitment to Afghanistan and the Afghan people.

The strategy was also hailed by former officials.

Rahmatullah Nabil, who served as an intelligence chief under ex-President Hamid Karzai commended the strategy in a tweet:

1/2 )We support the new US strategy that committs to support the AFG people, continue to support ANSDF and speaking loud and clear about…

This is the VERY reason I liked #TRUMP during the election and ever since. He has announced a very clear, realistic, and much-demanded strategy for Afghanistan. Looking forward to the #actions to happen!

Internationally, the reaction has been far more disgruntled, with Pakistani Prime Minster Shahid Khaqan Abbasiwarning that Trump’s allegations would not go unanswered by Pakistan, while Russia, China and Iran all lined up against it.

Moreover, despite the approval of his former intelligence chiefs, ex-leader Karzai also opposed the new strategy as “against peace and the national interest of Afghanistan”. A Taliban spokesman said Trump was only “wasting American soldiers’ lives”.

There is broad doubt that the new strategy will be sufficient to rein in Pakistan, seen as backing the Taliban and other militant groups in its bid to peg back Indian influence in the country the two South Asian rivals sandwich. Afghanistan's border with Pakistan is over 2,400 kilometers long and remains extremely porous.

Ali Amiri, lecturer at a private university in Kabul wrote on Facebook:

A good strategy for Afghanistan is one that that arouses Pakistan's anger. . . .

While Waheed Omar, Afghanistan's ambassador to Italy, spoke out against the jostling among international powers over the country.

US strategy. Some countries feel left out and pushed. This innocent child in a Kabul mosque takes the brunt of their frustration. Shameful! pic.twitter.com/e5nd7GSy7E

Trump's decision to brand Pakistan as a terrorism-harbouring country certainly carries risks. So does the strategy's apparent reliance on India to gradually replace Washington as Afghanistan's foremost economic patron, a role New Delhi seems unprepared to fill for the moment.

But for Trump, of course, none of these problems are really his problems at all.

]]>https://globalvoices.org/2017/08/27/trumps-strategy-for-afghanistan-new-hopes-and-old-fears/feed/1A Young Engineer From Niger Is Taking on Industrial Air Pollution With His Inventionhttps://globalvoices.org/2017/08/11/a-young-engineer-from-niger-is-taking-on-industrial-air-pollution-with-his-invention/
https://globalvoices.org/2017/08/11/a-young-engineer-from-niger-is-taking-on-industrial-air-pollution-with-his-invention/#respondFri, 11 Aug 2017 16:23:25 +0000https://globalvoices.org/?p=625422

Screen capture of documentary by SciDev Afrique on the anti-pollution invention from Niger.

You might have heard of Boyan Slat, a young Dutch inventor and entrepreneur who created a system using the circulating ocean currents to clean the ocean of trash and other pollutants. His project, The Ocean Cleanup, received a lot of attention after Slat gave a TEDx Talk in 2012 about it, attracting more than $31.5 million in donations from sponsors including Salesforce.com and philanthropist Peter Thiel.

The next young inventor seeking to help the environment just might come from Niger. Meet Abdou Barmini, 22, who invented an anti-pollution device that cleans the air from industrial fumes. Barmini says the device, called the APFI Barelec, will clean 80% of the air impurities coming from factory chimneys. If his claim is correct, his invention could prove to be particularly beneficial for low-income countries.

Here is how it works as explained by the Barmini himself in the following video (in French) produced by SciDev Afrique, the african portal of the news site on science and technology for global development:

The prototype is to be installed at the base of the chimney of factories expelling the fumes. The T-shaped device captures the CO2-containing heavy substances from the fumes via an affinity-based chemical assay that binds CO2 particles. The purified fumes are expelled via the other branch of the T-shaped structure.

Screen capture of Barmini standing next to his prototype via Africa 24

He adds that it is still at the prototype level, so a lot can be done to optimize the device. His colleague Garba Boubacar, a researcher in physics and environmental studies at the University of Niamey, Niger, suggests that:

The heavy particles found in the fumes are composed of more than carbon dioxide; there are others particles that his invention will have to fix, in order to achieve a purification rate closer to 100%.

Barmini says he worked tirelessly for two years, funding his research with his own income to achieve the prototype. His motivation for developing it was to find a solution to his growing concerns about air quality and climate change in his country of Niger.

The World Health Organization reports that ambient (outdoor) air pollution in both cities and rural areas was estimated to cause 3 million premature deaths worldwide in 2012 and that 88% of those premature deaths occurred in low- and middle-income countries. By reducing air pollution levels, countries can reduce the burden of disease from stroke, heart disease, lung cancer, and both chronic and acute respiratory diseases.

Niger is a landlocked country in Western Africa that is consistently one of the lowest-ranked in the United Nations‘ Human Development Index. Furthermore, the West Africa region has been drastically affected by climate change in the recent years. Niger's economy relies heavily on mining of which uranium and coal are the largest exports.

Open pit uranium mine near Arlit, Niger by David Francois – CC-BY-NC-2.0

Therefore, air quality is an urgent and immediate issue for the nation that is already suffering from an extremely hot and dry climate, severe drought and recurrent famine.

You might ask, how is Barmini's invention different from other air purifiers? Here is his explanation when probed by the Organisation de la Propriété Intellectuelle (African Intellectual Property Organization):

When he presented the state-of-the-art in the air purifier industry, Mr. Abdou Barmini stressed that 1) the existing ambient (or outdoor) purifiers are usually electronic devices that are used to clean the ambient air surrounding a factory. They do this by reducing or eliminating completely the number of harmful particles in the air in the vicinity of the emitting source (but they do not target the source of the emission itself). […] 2) Domestic (or indoor) purifiers are often performed via a filter. This technique efficiently cleans the air coming out of the machine. But this technique has also its shortcomings. It can cause blockage of the filter's mesh and cannot be efficiently used for industrial chimneys.

Barmini's APFI Barelec does not use a filter. The prototype was built with local materials that Barmini recycled, adapted and assembled to his needs. Barmini hopes that his invention will be noticed by climate change organizations that will help him finalize his project.

The massive Sardar Sarovar Dam project being built in 2008. Image from Flickr by Reinhold Behringer. CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Indian authorities are moving ahead with the inauguration of a controversial dam, and thousands of families who have refused to leave their homes in areas that will be submerged stand to be forcibly evicted.

The government says about 18,000 families are affected, and 6,724 live in the submergence areas, although activists and academics put that number much higher and accuse officials of fudging the count to lower costs and avoid litigation.

Residents are supposed to be offered a “rehabilitation” package, including compensation for land lost and resettlement to a new home. However, many have refused to leave their villages, complaining that the compensation is unjustly low and resettlement sites lack drinking water, sanitation, primary medical centers, schools, electricity and even roads.

The main purpose of the state-initiated Sardar Sarovar dam project is to generate hydroelectric power and supply water for drinking and irrigation to the states of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra.

But from the start of construction in 1987, protesters have said it will come at the expense of local people. The World Bank initially approved a loan to the Indian government of $450 million toward the $6 billion project, but withdrew the funding in 1993 following immense criticism and protests. Works were temporarily halted as per a Supreme Court ruling from 1995 to 1999, but resumed thereafter.

Over the years, the dam's proposed height has been increased little by little from the planned 80 meters to the current 138.68. This means that the dam will affect even more people. Social entrepreneur Siddharth Agarwal tweeted a Google Earth video he made to illustrate how the areas will be submerged:

In February 2017, the Supreme Court gave a directive that the rehabilitation of affected families be completed within three months, and that the valley must be vacated by July 31. On June 17, 2017, the Narmada Control Authority gave the final go ahead to the Gujarat government to close the Sardar Sarovar Dam gates, making the project “officially” complete.

The grand inauguration of the Sardar Sarovar Dam project in Gujarat by Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled on August 12, 2017 and the dam is likely to be filled to capacity by August-end, leading large areas to be submerged. The chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, had a recent update on Twitter:

98% construction work on R&R sites of Sardar Sarovar Dam has been completed. 12,500 out of 18,023 families have vacated the affected areas.

Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA), a group of indigenous people, farmers, environmentalists and human rights activists who for three decades have been resisting against the installation of large dams across the Narmada River, has been leading the charge in defense of these dam victims.

On July 27, 2017, Medha Patkar and about a dozen other activists from NBA started an indefinite hunger strike in the Dhar district of the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh to demand proper compensation and rehabilitation for those affected.

However, on the 12th day of the hunger strike, on August 7, Patkar was forcibly removed from the protest site by police and shifted to a hospital in Indore.

On August 8, the Supreme Court rejected a plea by NBA seeking an extension to the July 31 deadline to rehabilitate families affected by the Sardar Sarovar Dam. For the moment, it seems those Indians who live in the submergence area are destined for the forced eviction from their homes.

In other parts of the world, a writer might be thrilled if their online post was read millions of times overnight. But in China, popularity can result in political pressure, especially if the writer is not following the Chinese Communist Party's ideological line.

Recently, Zhang Wumao, the author of a hit essay titled “In Beijing, 20 Million People Pretend to Live” (read the full English translation on Beijing Cream), was forced to apologize to the public for “spreading negative energy.” Less than a day after the essay was posted on a WeChat public account, it had been viewed more than five million times.

Writer Zhang Guochen was born in China's western Shaanxi province, and moved to Beijing at the age of 25 in 2006. He began blogging soon after and has since published two novels: Spring Is Burning and Princess's Tomb. Zhang writes under the pen name Zhang Wumao (“50 cents” in Chinese) likely in reference to China's government-sponsored internet commenters.

Zhang's viral essay commented on Beijing's rapid economic and architectural development and rising economic inequality. It highlights the difficult lives of millions of internal migrants who do not have registered homes in Beijing and therefore do not have the safety net that inherited properties often become for native Beijingers.

Below are excerpts of the essay translated by Megan Pan on Beijing Cream:

Beijingers are very busy, busy all the way until 11 o’clock at night, and even then they are still stuck in traffic on the Third Ring Road; the time cost of socializing in Beijing is too high

[…]

I feel complete indifference for this city’s awesome structures and long history. Climbing the Great Wall, I only think of Lady Meng Jiang [who wept for her husband who died building the Great Wall], finding it difficult to stir up that lofty pride for the wonders of the world once more; walking into the Forbidden Palace, I see only one empty building after another, which is even less lively and interesting than my hometown’s pigpen.

[…]

In Beijing, this generation of migrants without inherited property are destined to be trapped within the housing system their whole lives. They struggle for decades to buy a house the size of a birdcage, then struggle a few more decades to swap it out for a slightly bigger second house, and if you make strides, congratulations, you can now consider school district housing.

[…]

Those who have successfully achieved their dreams are currently fleeing to Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the west coast of America. Those who have chased their dreams in vain are also fleeing, they are returning to Hebei, Dongbei, and their hometowns.

And in this city remain 20 million people, pretending to live. In reality, there is no life in this city. Here, there are only the dreams of few and the work of many.

Zhang's essay resonated with a large number of netizens, in particular those who work or have worked in Beijing. Housing prices have soared in Beijing in the past few years, with rates sometimes rising by 5-6% per week, and down payments are as high as 80% for some buyers. For the young working class, it has become more and more difficult to afford a mortgage for a small apartment in Beijing.

Morning rush hour in Beijing. Photo released to public domain.

Some echoed Zhang's view by writing about their own Beijing experience, while others rebuked his stereotypes of “old Beijingers”, in particular the claim that single children born in Beijing have five properties inherited from their grandparents and parents.

The essay was republished on a number of online media outlets. But on July 25, it disappeared from all social media accounts and websites.

This essay is classic case of bizarre hype. First, attach the label, then stir up emotion. Beijing is not a city with hospitality, old Beijingers are sitting on five properties, 20 million people pretend to live…

The piece stressed that the Beijingers’ struggles are simply what come with beginning a new life, not the result of “pretending” to have a life.

Another commentary piece published by government news outlet Xinhua also accused Zhang of sensationalizing the general problem of urbanization as something specific to the capital city.

Zhang apologized in a July 28 interview with a local media outlet, five days after the essay went viral. In his interview with local media outlets, he said he was under a lot of pressure after the post went viral and he wanted to apologize for acting like a spoiled kid and being “imprecise” in his writing.

The deletion of the post and the author's apology provoked an angry backlash on social media, denouncing the authorities’ suppression of his work. Below are some comments from a news thread on Weibo:

道毛歉，负能量的东西不能说，都看新闻联播好了

Why apologize? Chinese people have to watch the news on Chinese Central Television (CCTV) only because news of ‘negative energy’ can't be spoken.

这也要道歉？？？如果这篇文章写的全部是谎言，怎么会引起万千“北漂”强烈共鸣？？？作者破坏了大家做梦是么？

Why does he need to apologize? Could it be that the article resonated among thousands of migrants in Beijing? Is it because the author disturbed the public's dreams?

暂不论文章对错 写个文章居然要道歉 呵呵 下次该文字狱了吧

Whether you agree or not, there is no way that the writer of the piece has to apologize in public. A literary inquisition is coming.

The disappearance of Zhang's essay and his subsequent apology come as no surprise in China's current political climate, where authorities have tightened internet controls to ensure social stability in the run-up to a pivotal power reshuffle at the communist party congress in November. WeChat and Weibo have been subject to more severe censorship to make sure that the online public sphere is full of pro-government voices.

July 11, 1987 marks the Day of 5 Billion, or the approximate date when the world reached a population of five billion. As a result, beginning in 1989 the United Nations Development Program created World Population Day, an event celebrated on July 11 each year in the hopes of attracting the world’s attention to the urgency and importance of population issues.

With resolution 45/216 passed in December of 1990, the UN General Assembly decided to keep World Population Day in order to promote awareness and, above all, to promote the links between population issues, the environment, and development. By 1990, many countries began following the UNDP’s lead and started celebrating the day in their own countries.

French president Emmanuel Macron created a polemic by linking the underdevelopment of Africa to its demography during a press conference at the G20 in Hamburg, Germany. At the G20, the new French head of state created the polemic by attacking African women's fertility. When asked about African development, Emmanuel Macron pointed to the ‘7 to 8 children’ from African women as a ‘societal’ problem. ‘Africa's challenge’, ‘It's societal’, stated Mr. Emmanuel Macron: ‘What are Africa's problems?’ He then cites ‘failed states, complex democratic transitions, a demographic change which is (…) one of the defining challenges for Africa’. ‘When countries still have 7 to 8 children per woman, you can decide whether to spend billions of euros, you stabilize nothing’, he followed.

Here is a video of the speech (click on image to play video):

screen capture of video of E. Macron from Indy100

While waiting for African heads of state to react to these remarks, members of the site visionguinee.info were astonished:

No statement, no reaction from any African presidents. The presidential chapels did not toll with bells of indignation. With a guilty silence, lasting just the right amount of time, African heads of state, regional organization or sub-regional, did not release any statements lamenting or framing Macron's condescending comments on the exploding demography which is curbing Africa's development… The media outcry concerning Macron's comments matches the reactions of indignation and condemnation on social media. Responding to an Ivorian reporter's questions at the G20 summit in Germany, Macron made the link between the underdevelopment of Africa and the demographic explosion on the continent in remarks which resembled Nicolas Sarkozy's 2007 Dakar speech.

Facebook user Bouba Camara, in response to a comment by Mohamed Camara, president of the Association for the Promotion of Democracy and Good Governance, supported the French president's remarks but also added his own criticism, writing:

My dear president the fact that we have a growing demographic is a fact which no one can deny, but the question that we must ask: is this up to a non-African president to tell our women how many children they should have? I say no because French Colonial Africa is behind us. I believe rather it is for our respective African governments to fight against this trend, and only if it is truly a liability. Doing this by opting for good birth and infant mortality policies, but also implementing a family planning system as all other concerned governments do for their populations; without omitting that what he shames us for is also an advantage in another sense, because African populations are largely young and active, thus guaranteeing retirement for our predecessors. While in the West, the population is aging, inactive, and so inactive so their retirement is in danger, this is a fact.

I believe Macron has felt the full extent of our anger. From now on he and others will take a moment before broaching with glibness the difficult realities of Africa. What was the shocking for me is the twisting of reality. Beyond the impression of a lecturing teacher, overall, his comments are false. From the Marshall Plan, to public development aid via the demographic issue in order to finish on the diagnoses of problems which plague the continent. A damaging, simplistic generalization and lack of accountability for his own country and continent on the situation Africa is in. To the Africans who say that the best way to respond to Macron is to ignore him, I want to know why you are opening your mouths? Shut it, and let us answer. We're not responding out of emotion, we're responding in order to establish the truth!

Noel Gnimassou, living in Fria, a city in the interior of Guinea, observed:

Here is what irritates me about Africans: they assume the right to criticize the West, to mock them, even insult them. Sarkozy this, Trump that, Macron's a racist, etc. We publish jokes, photos, and caricatures of them. We dissect and condemn their statements often by questioning their ability to handle the affairs of their own country and of the world. But we Africans barely tolerate the least bit of criticism towards us, be it objective or constructive.

This observation generated a number of reactions, not always in agreement. Clairefall Fatou, a stylist who is based in Dakar, wrote:

Why not have 7 or 8 children when one can support them? It's a joy living in a big family! We have to be proud of our culture, it's beautiful and what works for others does not necessarily work for us Africans. Stop underestimating us! We have potential, and I believe everyone must set to work for the future of Africa.

The debate was not limited to social media users. In fact, even the president of the African Union, Alpha Condé, head of state of Guinea, entered the debate. While Guinea is the country which sends the third most migrants to Europe across the Mediterranean, he was indignant, outspoken, and declared:

When you speak of the explosive demographic, this is Malthusian, this is against Africa. Today, the other continents envy our demography, because they are an aging population. Our youth is our advantage. Therefore, we must adapt our language for what we want for Africa.

There is good reason to wonder if “His Excellency the Professor Alpha Condé President of Guinea”, as the media officials call him, spoke on behalf of all his peers. In fact, World Population Day, with its theme of Family Planning, was celebrated in nearly all of Africa. For example in Niger, the minister of population, Dr. Kaffa Rakiatou Christelle Jackou, and in Burkina Faso, Ms. Rosine Coulibaly, minister in charge of development, minister of economy, of finance and of development, emphasized the importance of controlling the growing demographic, as well as the need to improve access to family planning methods for women's empowerment and reduce the challenges that the exploding demography poses to weak African economies.

Even in Guinea itself there seemed to be mixed reactions, with the national director of population and development (DNPD), Mohamed Sano, emphasizing that Guinea would also be celebrating World Population Day under the theme of Family Planning, like its international peers.

Free Mode does not show photos, videos, and external websites. To switch to data mode, a user must pay appropriate charges. Screenshot by author

Facebook is an important platform for sharing news and information online. But even the most savvy of internet users can have trouble separating the real from the fake on the platform.

New research by Global Voices shows that the “free” mobile version of Facebook, accessible free of charge for users in multiple developing countries, makes it even harder to assess the reliability of news articles than on the regular version of Facebook.

In Facebook's effort to help introduce people in developing countries to the internet, the company has built a light-weight version of its website, which is offered alongside a handful of other sites and services offering things like news, weather and sports updates. This set of apps within an app is known as Free Basics.

In the light-weight version of Facebook offered via Free Basics, known in some countries as “Facebook Free”, users can connect with family and friends, chat using the Messenger app and upload or share content on Facebook without incurring data charges. But when it comes to news, they can only read article headlines and the captions of photos and videos. Unless they have a proper (and more expensive) data plan, the app does not allow them to read the news articles themselves.

In the current environment of hysteria over the prevalence of misinformation and “fake news” online, this limitation leaves users with limited budgets at a loss, giving them less access to useful information — and little capacity to determine whether the content is reliable or not. A user cannot see photos, videos, or the text of news articles from sites that are not included in the Free Basics package, which tend to be very few. To view this content, a user must pay data charges.

The Philippines had more than 47 million Facebook users in 2016, many of whom use Free Basics, which is provided in partnership with either Globe Telecommunications or Smart Communications.

Below we see the difference between the Facebook Free timeline (left) and the regular Facebook interface:

To switch from “free mode” (left) to “regular mode” (right), the user is notified that he or she must pay for data charges:

Main text: Use Data from Your Plan. You are leaving Facebook. Buy data from Globe in order to chat with friends, read article, and others. Screenshot by author

This is an easy option for those who can afford to pay the charges, but not for those who can't. This is unfortunate for those who are using Free Basics because they can’t afford the full cost of connecting to the global Internet.

When installing Free Basics for the first time, the user is informed through the app’s terms and conditions that charges apply if photos, videos, and external links are opened on Facebook. A mobile user with a postpaid plan can simply agree to use his or her existing data plan for the extra charges, but a prepaid user has to pay for it in a store or a market offering a Globe or Smart load (known as top-up card in other countries). The majority of internet subscribers in the Philippines are prepaid users.

This is the relevant clause in the terms and conditions by Globe, one of the two major telcos in the Philippines:

You can now access a version of Facebook on your mobile phone without using your data allowance with Globe. However, if you leave this version of Facebook, or view content outside of Facebook, such as links to articles or external videos, then you might start using your data plan to see that content.

When ‘fake news’ meets ‘free’ Facebook

If Facebook Free is a user’s only source of news, chances are that he or she will encounter articles with dubious information and sourcing, but will not have the tools to verify them. Consider the examples below:

Screenshot by author

Screenshot by author

There is a risk of Facebook Free users promoting fake news content without immediately realizing it. Here is a headline that seems newsworthy from a news website with a name similar to Al Jazeera:

Screenshot by author

Of course, the website is not actually Al Jazeera, but a copycat. However, without associated images, satire websites can also be harder to detect.

Screenshot by author

Among those who shared these articles are friends (of the author) who are university-educated and have spoken quite critically about fake news. Facebook Free clearly makes it more difficult to determine whether a clickbait headline is a factual news article or something less reliable.

Even headlines of legitimate news websites can mislead Facebook Free users. Below we see a news headline dated March 31, 2017 about Donald Trump referring to the Philippines as a “terrorist nation”.

While a regular user would be able to see that he made this comment in August 2016, before being elected president, a Facebook Free user would have no such information and could easily be led to believe that this had happened in recent days.

Screenshot by author

Facebook Free provides easy ways to communicate and access information. But its strict limitations on access to the broader web, along with its omission of key fact indicators such as images, may ultimately disempower users by giving them incomplete — and sometimes completely inaccurate — information.

When Facebook launched its Free Basics app aimed at helping people without Internet access, they said that the app would serve as an “on ramp” to using the whole global Internet.

But new research by Global Voices suggests that in contrast to this claim, the app primarily serves the needs of Facebook and other corporations, compromising user experience in order to achieve business objectives.

Free Basics today is a small set of apps within an app — it does not give them access to the full Internet, but instead offers a handful of web-based services, the most recognizable and prominent of which is Facebook.

Free Basics is currently available in 63 countries worldwide. In each market, it is provided through a partnership between Facebook and a local telecommunication operator. Operators provide a small amount of mobile data to customers, which can only be used to access Free Basics. Each country has a unique version of Free Basics, which is intended to provide adequate language support and content that is relevant for local users.

What kind of data does Facebook collect from Free Basics users?

Our research confirms that Free Basics grants Facebook access to unique streams of data about the habits and interests of users in developing countries. The company collects data about Free Basics users by monitoring their activities on Facebook — and throughout the Free Basics app.

In every version that we tested, users were strongly encouraged to log into Facebook, or sign up if they didn’t already have an account. The Facebook app appears at the top of the main page of the Free Basics app. And the app uses various tactics to encourage users to log in and keep up with their Facebook friends – for example, Colombia researcher Monica Bonilla reported the app automatically imported her Facebook account data because she had the Facebook app on her iPhone.

Free Basics permission screen in Ghana, via Tigo

But regardless of whether they log into Facebook, users of Free Basics are constantly sharing their data with Facebook.

Our team learned this right at the start of our process. When a user launches the app for the first time, she must consent to various policies — terms of use, a data policy, a cookies policy and a product-specific privacy policy. We were surprised to find that all but one of these policies were written as agreements between the user and Facebook — not Free Basics.

How does Facebook collect this data?

On their website describing the initiative, Facebook explains that all traffic for Free Basics routes through an Internet.org proxy server, which standardizes the traffic flow for the app to let telco operators “zero rate” the traffic, a technical process that makes its transfer less costly.

This system gives Facebook a single node through which to collect and temporarily store users’ metadata. This means that users — whether they are accessing Facebook, or some other service within the Free Basics program — are sharing data with Facebook about what sites they visit, when, and for how long.

As with its regular services, Facebook appears to use this data in order to inform its choices about what kinds of information to promote in a user's feed. In Colombia, researcher Monica Bonilla observed that content in her Facebook newsfeed changed to reflect the content she had browsed in other areas of the Free Basics app.

Who else collects data from Free Basics users?

In the six countries where we conducted case studies, a plurality of the apps featured on the main page (see screenshot) of Free Basics belong to companies based in the United States such as ESPN, ChangeCorps and Johnson & Johnson, the creator of the “BabyCenter” app.

Screenshot of Free Basics front page in Kenya, via Airtel.

While the BabyCenter app offers users practical health information, it also provides the company with profitable data on users’ search behaviors and the interests and habits of potential customers — something that could compromise the scope or even the accuracy of the information provided.

In a 2014 interview, Johnson & Johnson global strategy manager Christina Hoff told AdWeek magazine that with BabyCenter, the company “can tell what a mom is going to do before she does [it] based on what she is searching for.” She explained how BabyCenter data had helped the company market pharmaceuticals to parents, and boasted that data from the app is more valuable than what the company learns from parents’ activities on Facebook and Twitter.

All versions we tested also offered local content in addition to corporate services from the US. While in some countries such as the Philippines, the app's main page included a wide variety of local content offerings, in others it did not.

In Mexico, the version of Free Basics offered by Telcel included only one local service on its main page: the website for Fundación Carlos Slim, the foundation of Telcel CEO and billionaire Carlos Slim. Mexico researcher Giovanna Salazar surmised that the app was deliberately featured on Free Basics in an effort to advertise and collect additional data from users.

All versions of the app that we tested contained many other services (typically between 120 and 150 per version) beyond those featured on the app's main page. But the majority of these services were relegated to a different section of the app, which is tucked away under a drop-down menu that users (especially first-timers) can easily miss altogether.

When we asked Facebook why they chose to divide services into two separate tiers, they declined to answer.

Telecommunications operators and ‘unspecified third parties’

In their policies, Facebook also reserves the right to share data with unspecified third parties. It is unclear whether this includes the telecommunications operators they partner with, but telcos gain access to valuable data through other means: for example, to use Free Basics a user must have a smart phone with a SIM card. In most of the countries we studied, purchasing a SIM card requires providing telcos with personal information such as your legal name and national ID.

The study raises a number of questions that still need answering: How much data is Facebook collecting through the app, and who is it sharing this data with? To what extent is this data collection helping Facebook and other corporations build new marketing strategies for developing countries?

We hope to answer these questions, and learn more about the app from Facebook's Free Basics team, in the months to come.

Print advertisements for Free Basics in India, from 2015. Images shared widely on social media.

In 2015, Facebook rolled out a plan to help bridge the digital divide in developing countries with a mobile app called “Free Basics”.

The Free Basics program aims to bridge the digital divide by creating an “on ramp” to the Internet through a closed, mobile platform that gives users free access to a handful of online services, such as Accu Weather, BBC News and Wikipedia.

Now active in 63 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, Free Basics has become a part of Facebook's ascent to becoming the most popular and powerful social platform on earth. Thirteen years after going live, Facebook now has two billion monthly active users, more people than the total population of China. And the company has worked especially hard over the past two years to make its products popular and easy to use in developing countries. Free Basics is an important piece of this strategy.

On their promotional website for the app, Facebook rationalizes that “[by] introducing people to the benefits of the internet” they will help justify the cost of mobile data and thereby “bring more people online and help improve their lives.”

So how well does the app serve local interests and needs?

In spring 2017, a group of Global Voices tech and digital rights experts in Colombia, Ghana, Kenya, Mexico, Pakistan and the Philippines set out to answer this question. We conducted a series of case studies in these countries where we used the app and tested it against usability and open internet benchmarks that we developed in consultation with experts from the ICT and internet policy world. Read the full report.

With this research, we aim to increase public awareness, as well as digital rights and Information Communication Technology sector knowledge about the utility of Free Basics in the countries where it has been deployed.

Our key findings:

Free Basics might not speak your language: Free Basics does not meet the linguistic needs of target users. No version of the program tested in our study adequately served the linguistic needs of the local population. In heavily multilingual countries including Pakistan and Philippines, the app is offered in only one local language.

Free Basics features little local content, but plenty of corporate services from the US and UK. Free Basics includes a relatively small amount of content relevant to local issues and needs, lacking public service sites and independent news sources. It also does not include an email platform.

Free Basics doesn't connect you to the global internet – but it does collect your data: Facebook collects unique streams of user metadata from all user activities on Free Basics, not just the activities of users who are logged into Facebook. The company collects information about which third-party sites Free Basics users access, when, and for how long.

Free Basics violates net neutrality principles: Free Basics does not allow users to browse the open Internet. It offers access to a small set of services and prioritizes the Facebook app by actively urging users to sign-up for and log into the service. Free Basics also divides third-party services into two tiers, giving greater visibility to one set of information over another.

Some internet is better than none — but not on Facebook's terms: Global Voices research findings suggest that most of the content offered via Free Basics will not meet the most pressing needs of those who are not online, and that the data and content limitations built into Free Basics are largely artificial and primarily aimed at collecting profitable data from users.

About the research

We measured Free Basics against collectively-developed benchmarks of usability, quality of connection, language and accessibility, content, and privacy/data policies. Each researcher used and evaluated the app in their home country, and wrote a brief case study summarizing their findings.

Our full research report reflects our collective findings and analysis. Appendices to the report include our methodology, a selective list of third-party services provided by Free Basics and a collection of screenshots of each version of the app. We encourage curious readers and researchers to explore all of these materials and consider using them to conduct their own research or analysis.

Research Team

Kofi Yeboah is a Ghanaian blogger and communications strategist with a deep interest in internet freedom. Kofi is an active contributor with Global Voices and served as the research coordinator for the Free Basics in Real Life project.

Monica Paola Bonilla is a linguist who has collaborated Global Voices since 2015. She has worked on projects of language documentation and localization of software to native languages spoken in Colombia, Mexico, Ecuador and Peru. Her areas of interest are applied linguistics, digital literacy, digital inclusion, free software, computer science and native languages. She serves as the Mozilla Rep for Colombia, leads Mozilla Nativo Club and works for an open and accessible web for all people.

Mahnoor Jalil is an intern at Mindmap Communications. She works with Karachi Youth Productions, and has participated in more than twelve Model UN Conferences. She is looking forward to beginning her Bachelor's degree in Media later this year.

Faisal Kapadia is a writer, blogger and co-founder of Mindmap Communications, a digital media agency in Pakistan and the UAE. An author with Global Voices since 2007, co-produced a podcast that Google Pakistan named best of Pakistan in 2010. He currently writes a weekly column in the Daily Times. Faisal has a Bachelor's in Management Information Systems and is an experienced trainer in digital media and content.

Mong Palatino is the Southeast Asia editor of Global Voices. He is also an activist based in Manila, Philippines.

Giovanna Salazar is an internet researcher who focuses on information controls and digital activism in Latin America. She holds a Masters in Media Studies from the University of Amsterdam and serves as the Advocacy and Communications Officer at SonTusDatos.org, a Mexican NGO focused on privacy and data protection online. She is also a regular contributor for Global Voices’ Advox and Latin America teams.

Njeri Wangari Wanjohi‘s work lies at the intersection of the arts, technology and media. As one of Kenya’s blogging pioneers, she has run kenyanpoet.com for over ten years and is one of the founding directors of Bloggers Association of Kenya (BAKE). She is also a published poet and author of Mines & Mind Fields: My Spoken Words. With a background in ICTs specializing in systems support, in 2014 Njeri founded AfroMum, a leading online publication for women in Africa, to focus on family, technology, and other issues affecting women. She is a contributing author with Global Voices, Mail & Guardian Africa, Kenya Monitor and The Nairobi Garage Newsletter. Njeri is currently the Marketing Manager at GeoPoll, a mobile survey platform.

Another effort is Facebook's Internet.org project, which the Silicon Valley company describes as an initiative to bring internet access and the benefits of connectivity to the portion of the world that doesn‘t have them. The flagship product of Internet.org is a mobile app called Free Basics, which gives users access to Facebook and a handful of online services, such as Accu Weather, BBC News and Wikipedia free of charge.

On the Internet.org website, Facebook explains that the app is intended to help people justify the cost of mobile data:

“By introducing people to the benefits of the internet through these websites, we hope to bring more people online and help improve their lives.”

In an effort to better understand the impact of the Free Basics app and its role within the broader spectrum of global internet access development initiatives, a group of Global Voices contributors tested the Free Basics app in six countries across the globe this spring. We conducted a case studies in Colombia, Ghana, Kenya, Mexico, Pakistan and the Philippines, along with a review of research, criticism and public documentation about the app's use and utility. [Learn more our research]

Free Basics is available in 63 countries, 26 of which are in Africa. Facebook partners with mobile telecommunication operators who provide this extra data that allows subscribers to access the Free Basics app.

When using Free Basics via Tigo in Ghana, the main screen of the app looks like this:

Main screen of Free Basics in Ghana, via Tigo. Screenshot by Kofi Yeboah

The app features the following sites:

Facebook

Facebook Messenger

Facts for Life

OLX

Tonaton Ghana

Baby Center

Disney Story Central

Jobberman Ghana

Ghanaweb

BBC News

Africa.com

GhanaNews

Wikipedia

Bing

ESPN FC

Super Sports

Accuweather

Most of the featured sites are based in the US or Europe. The only local and local versions of services featured on the main screen include the e-commerce site Tonaton Ghana, the job search site Jobberman Ghana, Super Sports, and the news sites Ghana Web and Ghana News, both of which tend to feature repackaged stories that have already been reported elsewhere.

The Bing search engine is also available in Ghana, and on most other versions that we tested. Of course, it has limited utility, given that nearly all links that appear in search results are inaccessible for the user. When a user tries to select a link from Bing search results, they are met with a notification that reads “Data Charges Apply.” If the user does not have a data plan, they are unable to access the selected website.

A larger set of apps, ranging from learning apps to sports and entertainment sites, can be found on a separate page a few clicks beyond the main screen. Nearly all of these sites are based outside of Ghana, and many of them outside of Africa.

When using the websites that are available on the Free Basics app, subscribers do not get full use of these websites. For example, if a user wants to use the Facebook app within Free Basics, they will not be able to access pictures or watch videos on the app.

If a user encounters a video or image on a news site, these too are often removed from the screen, as demonstrated in the image above. Users are notified by the app that they must pay data charges if they want to view a picture or watch a video on the Free Basics app.

The Free Basics app provides its users limited access to websites and other important apps. It does not offer access to any government or public service websites, nor does not offer services from Facebook's main competitors. For instance, Free Basics has no Twitter app. It also does not include an email app.

Free Facebook ad, by Airtel.

Since its inception, Free Basics has raised lots of concern about net neutrality, an industry term used to indicate that anyone from anywhere around the world should be equally able to access or provide services and content on the internet. In short, it means that in a truly open internet, all content is treated equally.

The corporate interests at stake in the Free Basics program are difficult to ignore. Apart from the interests of Facebook and the handful of sites and services offered on the app, telecommunications operators also benefit from Free Basics.

Previous reports by BuzzFeed News told us that telecommunications operators — not Facebook — are covering the actual cost of providing users with mobile data that allows them to access the Free Basics app. Local advertising campaigns and even comments from telco employees indicate that Free Basics has served as a way to drive new subscribers to their network by enticing potential subscribers with the promise of enjoying free access to Facebook.

John-Paul Iwuoha, an author and impact investor has advised African governments to in his article published on the Huffington Post titled “Dear Mr. Zuckerberg: Thanks for ‘Free Basics’ in Africa, But We’re Not Totally Convinced.” As Iwuoha put it:

While Mr. Zuckerberg firmly believes that restrictive editions of the internet like Free Basics and the principles of net neutrality can co-exist, I have banged my head against the wall several times to imagine how that would happen.

Africa’s history is littered with governments and “gatekeepers” who seek to censor and control access to information, monopolize public conversations, and regulate communication and expression. The open internet is helping to break that stranglehold, and the outcomes could change everything (or most things) for the continent. Therefore, it’s in Africa’s best interests to hold on to the principles of net neutrality to avoid a return to the “dark days.”

Facebook says it doesn’t handpick the services on Free Basics anymore, and now admits any service or website that meets its “criteria.” This sounds comforting, but we must not lose our guard as long as Facebook — a profit-driven, U.S.-based company — retains gate-keeper powers over millions of Africans who will likely come online as a result of Free Basics.

[…]

Facebook’s actions and strategic business investments in Africa need to reflect its vision of bringing internet access to all Africans. Not just a slice of the internet, but all of it.

If indeed, if Facebook wanted to improve the knowledge of people across the globe, especially in developing countries, they would open their platform to include more languages, enable key features like pictures and videos — a great and dynamic medium for sharing and improving knowledge — and allow users to access more information from across the web.

This post reflects the position and findings of Kofi Yeboah as an independent writer and researcher. It does not reflect the views of his employer.